All Discussions Tagged 'laws' - Atheist Universe2019-02-22T17:28:06Zhttp://atheistuniverse.net/forum/topic/listForTag?tag=laws&feed=yes&xn_auth=noBlasphemy Laws in Europe - Gatestone Institue.tag:atheistuniverse.net,2019-01-01:6381005:Topic:4391042019-01-01T08:47:05.465ZLutzhttp://atheistuniverse.net/profile/Lutz
<p>I normally am skeptical of this outfit. It is ideological to the extreme. One reason it is interesting. But now and then they get it right.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13377/european-court-human-rights-blasphemy-laws">https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13377/european-court-human-rights-blasphemy-laws</a></p>
<p></p>
<p>I normally am skeptical of this outfit. It is ideological to the extreme. One reason it is interesting. But now and then they get it right.</p>
<p></p>
<p><a href="https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13377/european-court-human-rights-blasphemy-laws">https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13377/european-court-human-rights-blasphemy-laws</a></p>
<p></p> Dammit, no one asked me If I wanted to be born! No one has a right...tag:atheistuniverse.net,2017-04-02:6381005:Topic:4072672017-04-02T06:16:48.320ZTom Sarbeckhttp://atheistuniverse.net/profile/TomSarbeck
...a right to keep me here without my consent! I want more separation of church and state.<br />
<br />
When I was a kid religions had enough political power to force local and state governments to enact blue laws (aka Sunday laws). These laws required most businesses to close on Sundays. The only store open near where I lived was a pharmacy.<br />
<br />
Too many other religion-mandated laws still exist. Among them are laws that require people to live in pain. Until recently medical doctors ignored the oath they had…
...a right to keep me here without my consent! I want more separation of church and state.<br />
<br />
When I was a kid religions had enough political power to force local and state governments to enact blue laws (aka Sunday laws). These laws required most businesses to close on Sundays. The only store open near where I lived was a pharmacy.<br />
<br />
Too many other religion-mandated laws still exist. Among them are laws that require people to live in pain. Until recently medical doctors ignored the oath they had taken to do no harm. German court rules religious circumcision on boys an assaulttag:atheistuniverse.net,2012-06-27:6381005:Topic:2758832012-06-27T14:39:43.438ZMichelhttp://atheistuniverse.net/profile/MichelPoisson
<p>It's always been my opinion that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision" target="_blank">circumcision</a> is indeed an assault. Now we know how practicing religious Jews will line up on this issue, it tramples on their "religious right" to harm their children in the name of superstition. Of course.</p>
<p>But I'm curious about the mostly liberal "cultural" Jews' stance on this new ruling.</p>
<p>From AFP:…</p>
<p>It's always been my opinion that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision" target="_blank">circumcision</a> is indeed an assault. Now we know how practicing religious Jews will line up on this issue, it tramples on their "religious right" to harm their children in the name of superstition. Of course.</p>
<p>But I'm curious about the mostly liberal "cultural" Jews' stance on this new ruling.</p>
<p>From AFP:</p>
<blockquote><p class="first" id="yui_3_5_1_22_1340805180389_256"><strong>Circumcising young boys on religious grounds amounts to <span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1340786654_0">grievous bodily harm</span></strong>, a German court ruled Tuesday in a landmark decision that the Jewish community said trampled on parents' <span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1340786654_2">religious rights</span>.</p>
<p id="yui_3_5_1_22_1340805180389_262">The <span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1340786654_1">regional court</span> in Cologne, <span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1340786654_5">western Germany</span>, ruled that the "fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity outweighed the<span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1340786654_6">fundamental rights</span> of the parents", a judgement that is expected to set a legal precedent.</p>
<p id="yui_3_5_1_22_1340805180389_265">"The <span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1340786654_4">religious freedom</span> of the parents and their right to educate their child would not be unacceptably compromised, if they were obliged to wait until the child could himself decide to be<span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1340786654_3">circumcised</span>," the court added.</p>
<p id="yui_3_5_1_22_1340805180389_272">The case was brought against a <span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1340786654_8">doctor</span> in Cologne who had circumcised a four-year-old Muslim boy on his parents' wishes.</p>
<p><a href="http://api.ning.com:80/files/v04inXGcrl0j*bTvqTHanTc*KBopalN*YXPi2TP6iaR7wlfAGHw4*aH3mu6rlDfb3gxPmYQZ6dYiC3zvMR5odnmH81LxabSt/800pxPenile_nerve_block_dorsal.jpg" target="_self"><img src="http://api.ning.com:80/files/v04inXGcrl0j*bTvqTHanTc*KBopalN*YXPi2TP6iaR7wlfAGHw4*aH3mu6rlDfb3gxPmYQZ6dYiC3zvMR5odnmH81LxabSt/800pxPenile_nerve_block_dorsal.jpg?width=200" width="200" style="padding: 10px;" class="align-left"/></a>A few days after the operation, his parents took him to hospital as he was bleeding heavily. Prosecutors then charged the doctor with grievous bodily harm.</p>
<p>The doctor was acquitted by a lower court that judged he had acted within the law as the parents had given their consent.</p>
<p>On appeal, the regional court also acquitted the doctor but for different reasons.</p>
<p>The regional court upheld the original charge of grievous bodily harm but also ruled that the doctor was innocent as there was too much confusion on the legal situation around circumcision.</p>
<p>The court came down firmly against parents' right to have the ritual performed on young children.</p>
<p id="yui_3_5_1_22_1340805180389_270">"The body of the child is irreparably and permanently changed by a circumcision," the court said. "<strong>This change contravenes the interests of the child to <span style="text-decoration: underline;">decide later</span> on his <span class="yshortcuts cs4-ndcor" id="lw_1340786654_7">religious beliefs</span>.</strong>"</p>
<p>The decision caused outrage in Germany's Jewish community.</p>
<p>The head of the Central Committee of Jews, Dieter Graumann, said the ruling was "an unprecedented and dramatic intervention in the right of religious communities to self-determination."</p>
<p id="yui_3_5_1_22_1340805180389_413">The judgement was an "outrageous and insensitive act. <strong>Circumcision of newborn boys is <span style="text-decoration: underline;">a fixed part of the Jewish religion</span> and has been practiced worldwide for centuries</strong>," added Graumann.</p>
<p id="yui_3_5_1_22_1340805180389_411">"This religious right is respected in every country in the world."</p>
<p id="yui_3_5_1_22_1340805180389_409">Holm Putzke, a criminal law expert at the University of Passau, told the Financial Times Deutschland that the ruling was "enormously important for doctors because for the first time they have legal certainty."</p>
<p id="yui_3_5_1_22_1340805180389_403">"<strong>Unlike many politicians, the court has not allowed itself to be scared off by charges of anti-Semitism or religious intolerance</strong>," added Putzke.</p>
<p id="yui_3_5_1_22_1340805180389_405">The World Health Organisation has estimated that nearly one in three males 15 or over is circumcised. In the United States, the operation is often performed <strong>for hygiene reasons</strong> on infants.</p>
<p id="yui_3_5_1_22_1340805180389_407">Thousands of young boys are circumcised every year in Germany, especially in the country's large Jewish and Muslim communities.</p>
<p>The court specified that circumcision was not illegal if carried out for medical reasons.</p>
<p><a href="http://news.yahoo.com/german-court-outlaws-religious-circumcision-172728400.html" target="_blank">(LINK on Yahoo News)</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>-------------------------------------</p>
<p>From Wikipedia where someone compiled the various rationales behind the practice across the world and across history:</p>
<ul>
<li>As a religious sacrifice</li>
<li>As a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rite_of_passage" title="Rite of passage">rite of passage</a> marking a boy's entrance into adulthood</li>
<li>As a form of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_thinking" title="Magical thinking">sympathetic magic</a> to ensure virility or fertility</li>
<li>As a means of enhancing sexual pleasure</li>
<li>As an aid to hygiene where regular bathing was impractical</li>
<li>As a means of marking those of higher social status</li>
<li>As a means of humiliating enemies and slaves by symbolic <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castration" title="Castration">castration</a></li>
<li>As a means of differentiating a circumcising group from their non-circumcising neighbors</li>
<li>As a means of discouraging <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masturbation" title="Masturbation">masturbation</a> or other socially proscribed sexual behaviors</li>
<li>As a means of removing "excess" pleasure</li>
<li>As a means of increasing a man's attractiveness to women</li>
<li>As a demonstration of one's ability to endure pain</li>
<li>As a male counterpart to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstruation" title="Menstruation">menstruation</a> or the breaking of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymen" title="Hymen">hymen</a></li>
<li>To copy the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aposthia" title="Aposthia">rare natural occurrence of a missing foreskin</a> of an important leader</li>
</ul>
<p>However long you stretch that list, circumcision - while less consequent for the victim than clitoridectomy - remains a barbaric assault on the most helpless of helpless beings, a practice rooted in antiquated principles that is perpetuated because it's always been done before and that attacks the integrity of someone else's body. </p>
<p>Just imagine if we discovered a sect that believed the number five unholy and had its clergy amputate both middle fingers and middle toes of all its newborns. It wouldn't go down very well, right?</p>
<p>Yet 30% of human males are circumcised today...</p> 6 Crazy, Unconstitutional Laws Right-Wingers Are Blowing Your Money Ontag:atheistuniverse.net,2011-05-23:6381005:Topic:870032011-05-23T13:16:30.623ZNealhttp://atheistuniverse.net/profile/Neal
<p id="paragraph9">Next time some crackhead conservative brings up fiscal responsibility, bring a few of these up.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em><strong>1. Anti-Sharia Laws</strong></em></p>
<p><br></br><em>According to Mother Jones, five states have banned “Sharia law” and another 11 (!) are “working on it.” Aside from the fact that, for the non-crazy among us, there is no discrete legal code known as Sharia law, the other problems with these measures are the establishment and free exercise clauses of the…</em></p>
<p id="paragraph9">Next time some crackhead conservative brings up fiscal responsibility, bring a few of these up.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em><strong>1. Anti-Sharia Laws</strong></em></p>
<p><br/><em>
According to Mother Jones, five states have banned “Sharia law” and another 11 (!) are “working on it.” Aside from the fact that, for the non-crazy among us, there is no discrete legal code known as Sharia law, the other problems with these measures are the establishment and free exercise clauses of the 1st Amendment of the United States Constitution.<b><br />
</b></em></p>
<p> </p>
<p><em><strong>2. Abortion Bills Conflicting with Roe</strong></em><br/> <br/><em>
Less humorous are a spate of anti-abortion bills that fly in the face of the Supreme Court's longstanding view that the Constitution grants a “right to privacy” pertaining to such matters as abortion. These are not designed merely to pander to the base, but to restrict abortions to a degree that they become effectively impossible to obtain.</em><br/>
<br/><em>
Those pushing the bills understand that the pro-choice community is rightly apprehensive of trying these cases before a Supreme Court with five conservative Catholic justices. So, they are designed to put their opponents in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation; they can accept ever greater limits on women's access to reproductive health services, or they can try their luck in front of the Supreme Court and risk seeing Roe v. Wade overturned altogether.<br />
</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p id="paragraph8"><em><strong>3. Nullification Laws</strong></em></p>
<p><em><strong><br/></strong></em></p>
<p id="paragraph9"><em>We've seen truthers, birthers, deathers and then there are the tenthers, who believe that states can simply opt-out of any federal law that isn't explicitly included in the Constitution. They've used it to pass – or propose – laws opting out of everything from hate crimes legislation to health-care reform. Yes, they're partying like it's 1861!</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p><em><strong>4. States Regulating Immigration</strong></em><br/> <br/><em>
Again, the courts have long held, under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, that when a state law conflicts with a federal law, the former is, in the words of Justice John Paul Stevens writing for the majority in a 2008 case, “without effect.” The federal government has argued, and won, a whole slew of cases based on federal immigration laws trumping competing legislation passed by the states.<br />
</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>In fact, as I noted last year, the courts have held that the government has exclusive domain over immigration law dating back to the 1880s. The National Immigration Law Center summarized those early decisions like this:</em><br/> <br/><em>
In a series of cases in the late nineteenth century upholding provisions of the Chinese Exclusion Acts, the Supreme Court described the federal immigration power in sweeping terms, as a plenary power not subject to normal judicial restraints. In subsequent decisions the Court has repeatedly confirmed Congress’s full and exclusive authority over immigration. State and local laws that attempt to regulate immigration violate the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution and are therefore preempted by federal law.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p><em><strong>5. Don't Say This or That Laws</strong></em><br/> <br/><em>
Guess what? Nowhere in the First Amendment does it say, you have the right to free speech, “except for those living in the deep South.”</em><br/>
<br/><em>
Yet Florida's legislature has passed a law barring physicians from asking patients if there is a firearm present in their home. An earlier version of the bill, subtly called “Don't Ask,” would have made it a felony, but that was apparently too crazy even for Florida.</em><br/>
<br/><em>
Not to be outdone, the Tennessee Senate passed a law this week that “would forbid public school teachers and students in grades kindergarten through eight from discussing the fact that some people are gay.” The “Don't Say 'Gay'” law prompted George Takei, of Star Trek fame, to offer his own name to be used as a proxy.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p><em><strong>6. Financial 'Martial Law'</strong></em><br/> <br/><em>
Also in the less funny category is Michigan governor Rick Snyder's “financial martial law” legislation, which allows him to appoint “emergency financial managers” authorized to take over local municipalities. It empowers them, among other things, to “reject, modify, or terminate one or more terms and conditions of an existing collective bargaining agreement.”</em><br/>
<br/><em>
Typical war on unions stuff, yet as Think Progress noted, it's also pretty obviously unconstitutional:</em><br/>
<br/><em>
There’s a pretty serious problem with this power grab, however — invoking it would violate the Constitution. The Constitution forbids state laws “impairing the Obligation of Contracts.” This provision provides a robust limit on a state’s ability to dissolve contracts between the government and a private party. As the Supreme Court explained in United States Trust Co. v. New Jersey, state laws impairing such contracts must be “reasonable and necessary to serve an important public purpose.”</em><br/>
<br/><em>
The consequences of Snyder’s actions could be stark. If a state is free to break contracts whenever they feel like it, than no one will agree to do business with the state. Investors will refuse to buy the state’s bonds, and state contractors will demand all payments upfront out of fear that the state will accept their work and then tear up the contract requiring the workers to be paid. Creditors will charge the state enormous interest rates to secure against the risk that the state will just waive its hand and make its obligation to repay go away.</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Full article <a target="_blank" href="http://www.alternet.org/story/151033/6_crazy%2C_unconstitutional_laws_right-wingers_are_blowing_your_money_on?page=4">here.</a></p>